Battalion 1944 revamps and fixes much in 'major' update

“TOTAL REWORK,” declares a trailer for Battalion 1944‘s new free update. “THE COMMUNITY HAS BEEN HEARD.”

Bulkhead Interactive’s World War 2 multiplayer FPS got off to a rocky start in early access, see. Our Alec admired what he played, even if his clicking finger has grown slow and preoccupied in his old age, but he did note a number of problems – and players did too. Five months later, the game’s second “major” early access update arrived today with rebalanced weapons, a new map, a new mode, performance improvements, and a broad prettying-up including new player models and map polish.

The patch notes highlight the following as the biggest changes, then go into more detail on these and all the rest.

Early access programs are intended to give time for players to make fixes and changes like this, taking a game from playable concept to all-singing, all-dancing full game. But this can backfire in multiplayer games–which are always fighting to hold onto players anyway–when your existing big fans jump in, are put off by bugs and other problems, and can grow sick of the game before it’s even properly launched.